By Luis Rivera III
Many people are under the false impression that the oil spill that occurred in April of 2010 was due to a lack of regulations. One of these individuals is Thomas Frank, a “journalist” from The War Street Journal.* In this lecture Walter Block offers a rebuttal to this absurd claim. He sheds light on the fact that the regulations in place at the time prevented drilling or mining at the Alaska Artic National Wildlife Reserve, Oil Sands in Alberta (mining), National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and Shallow Offshore off The Gulf of Mexico. The drilling could have been done in much more shallow water, instead of the 6,000 feet the government forced BP to drill. Common sense dictates that in 20 something feet stopping a leaking would have been much easier. However, the state has no such common sense and the leakage persisted for months causing significant damage to so many.
An example of a law that increased the negative impact of the oil spill is the Jone’s Act. The Jones’ Act as Dr. Block talks about in this lecture actually prevented the experts in the field of cleaning up oil, from helping and thus lessening the devastion. Block, offers a solution, he says allow oceans to be managed with proper incentives and repercussions – allow for oceans to be (“privately”) owned. This erases the problem that comes with the tragedy of the commons which is a direct result of un owned mass (which is not abundant).
Click the link below to see Block’s entire speech on the matter:
Walter Block On The Deep Horizon Oil Spill
Note: Dr. Walter Block is currently working on a book about privatizing the oceans.
*Wall Street Journal
